Cornerstone Brands, has confirmed the acquisition of FXPress Payments Services Ltd, a payments platform-as-a-service provider for SMEs, as it received a green light from its shareholders today.
As detailed by the company, 99 percent of Cornerstone shareholders approved on the acquisition and it is now awaiting approval from the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to complete the process.
The press release shared with Finance Magnates detailed that upon receiving the regulatory approval, Cornerstone will purchase the entire issued share capital of FXPress with the issuance of 1,401,275,638 new A Ordinary shares.
FXPress is a foreign exchange (forex) specialist. The company’s proprietary payment services platform, which has been designed to take advantage of the Open Banking Initiative (OBI), can integrate into corporate accounting systems and bank accounts to optimize transactions.
A Strategic Acquisition Deal
Following the acquisition, Cornerstone will focus on building a significant business in the provision of international payment services for SMEs via organic and inorganic growth.
This announcement came only a couple of weeks after FXPress acquired Avila House Limited, a licensed small electronic money institution. Thus, it is expanding its multi-currency services further.
Earlier reports also hinted that the FX payments company was eying to go public this year, but nothing has been confirmed yet.
Following the completion of the Cornerstone-FXPress deal, the parent company will restructure by selling its existing business to Oliver Bridge and Spencer Hill.
The announcement also stated that “the Directors of the Company believe that there are meaningful opportunities to build the business by developing a broader range of products and services based around a portfolio of technology-enabled international payment services, including allowing customers to maintain their own multi-currency electronic payment accounts.”
